Knock, knock—
I rapped on Cha Gweonwoo’s door, but there was no answer from inside—maybe he was asleep.
I figured it was my chance to bail and started to turn away, but after a few steps I stopped and scratched my head. As if she’d sensed my hesitation and followed me all the way here, Dr. Park Soyoung started nagging straight into my skull.
Guide Kim Doweon, please, I’m begging you—guide diligently!
“Ah, fuck.”
With no choice, I knocked again and carefully opened the door. Cha Gweonwoo was sitting up, back against the headboard.
Why the bed! There’s a sofa, a desk chair, a massage chair—and you pick the bed?
Earbuds in, eyes on a laptop. His brow narrowed to a blade, veins standing out on a hand that looked ready to pulp someone, lips clamped tight. Astonishingly familiar.
Yes. This was the Cha Gweonwoo I knew.
I worked up the nerve to go closer; even with earbuds in, he must’ve felt me—he lifted his head and looked up at me. A face utterly indifferent. The familiarity of it gave my chest a little ache.
Yeah, that’s it! This is how you’re supposed to treat me, Cha Gweonwoo! Where’d you go and why are you only just getting back!
The relief lasted all of three seconds.
“…”
The chill lines collapsed; the face from a moment ago vanished like a trick.
Maybe it was the way the eyes curved into arcs instead of that habitual stare, or the brows that used to be slanted up now arching smoothly, or the way the bangs, usually spiked up, lay soft over his forehead—but he looked at least ten years younger than the Cha Gweonwoo I knew…
And I still wasn’t used to that face.
It didn’t feel like a smile from the heart! Like there’s something behind it! In thrillers, the ones who smile like that are always the ones who secretly kill ten people in the background—that’s what it felt like!
I forced an awkward smile back and dragged a chair over beside him.
“So… there’s something I need to do every day.”
And, naturally, I snuck a glance at what he was watching.
“…”
Oh, fuck.
Unlucky me—he must’ve gotten the same materials from Dr. Park at the same time.
I screamed on the inside.
Why are you watching that so seriously! Why! With earbuds in and everything! Is that what his “strong will” was supposed to mean?
Up until a moment ago I thought I could at least manage an air kiss, but standing in front of him, my resolve disintegrated in an instant.
Right. Not today! I can’t today! Like I said earlier, I’m extremely shy with strangers!
So, per orders, I’d just take his blood pressure and temperature, check his condition, and call it a night. I shoved the laptop as far away as I could and clattered my testing kit out onto it.
“What is it?”
He showed needless interest. Those two eyes, bright as stars in a night sky, were way too much at this range.
Please don’t do this.
Flustered by how close we were, I flinched and inched back before I knew it.
Even though we guided almost daily, we’d never been this close. He’d always treated me like an animal behind glass. His gaze was fixed on his book, the only thing he offered me was a hand, and he spent the rest of the time keeping his body out of the way so nothing else would touch.
But this Cha Gweonwoo watched, eyes shining, the entire time I took out the cuff and thermometer at his side.
Please don’t pay attention to me. Please don’t pay attention to me. Please, I’m begging you, don’t pay attention to me. Please don’t pay attention to me. Don’t pay attention to me. Don’t pay attention to me.
Outwardly I acted unbothered.
“Blood pressure. I’ll take that first.”
Reaching for his arm, I startled without meaning to. This is the same Cha Gweonwoo who used to freak out like a guy who’d lost a finger if a collar so much as brushed him. The thought flashed—maybe the younger version would hate it too.
I flicked my eyes up at his face, then, spooked by how close his gaze was, hurriedly looked away.
“I’m just going to touch your arm. Very lightly.”
He tugged the corner of his mouth up in a little smile at my mouse-voice and answered:
“Okay. Please touch me.”
The cutesy lilt in his tone made the cuff slip right out of my fingers—thud—onto the bed.
What? Did that sound just come out of his mouth? No way?
I couldn’t even speak; I just stared at him, stunned.
Cha Gweonwoo… how are you planning to live if your memories come back…?
After his “please touch me,” my brain turned white as a bathroom floor bleached with industrial-strength cleaner.
It felt like dealing with a tutelary spirit insisting the gold axe was mine when all I had was a stone one. Meaning: I was about to lose my mind.
I hurriedly noted the reading and grabbed the thermometer.
“I—I’m going to take your temperature too.”
“Okayyy,” he answered, sweet as syrup, and brought his face to my hand like he’d been waiting for it.
He put his face on my hand! And he’s closing his eyes so docilely!
His meekness tied my insides in knots.
What’s he going to do when his memory returns? Is he going to throw a fit the moment it does and announce he’s done with life?
If I lost my memories and acted cute to Cha Gweonwoo? I’d go bury my face in the restricted zone of Cheonggyecheon and die.
Maybe it’d help if I thought of the person in front of me as his little brother?
Like he had a younger brother who looked exactly the same but had a much better personality and was this sweet.
I was running mental circles when something tock tapped my glabella. I jolted and looked up to see a long finger extended.
…Wh-what is this?
“What are you thinking about so hard?”
I couldn’t hide my fluster; the eyes that met mine curved into a graceful line.
For some reason I thought of a tropical fish we used to keep at home when I was little—the way its extra-blue, ornate fins spread through the water like spilled paint. That same sense of wonder.
Right—Cha Gweonwoo did look like this.
Even after countless times saying, at his unmoving face, “All he has going for him is that face,” I still found myself newly shocked seeing him smile.
He really is absurdly good-looking.
He’s like a drawing carved hard with a sharp pen, but the moment a smile settles at his lips, the whole mood softens a hundred eighty degrees.
What is this. A face that flips between woodcut and oil painting whenever it wants.
Since I just stared and didn’t answer, he tilted his head, puzzled. That snapped me back to myself.
“No, no.”
Gawking at someone’s face—at his face, of all people!
Mortified, I wanted to bite my tongue clean through and die…
Beep—
Thank God—like a relief pitcher, the thermometer announced at full volume it was done.
“Thirty-six point three.”
I grabbed my pen and wrote down his temperature with more care than Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Gawking at his face. I’m dying of embarrassment. Even that time I waited for a bus after a day without food and drooled at the tteokbokki on a snack stand—I wasn’t this mortified.
With his head slightly bowed, he stared straight at me. I tried to ignore it, but anyone could see he had something to say.
Ha.
I held out as long as I could, then finally looked up like, fine, spit it out. Only then did he open his mouth.
“But if you’ve been my partner guide for two years, weren’t we at least somewhat close?”
“…”
“You seem uncomfortable around me.”
His face practically dripped with hurt.
No!
It felt like getting a three-point exam question from a chapter I never studied.
I didn’t know what he was expecting, but—this was never a relationship where “close” or “not close” even applied! It was strictly business.
Should I be honest? Or should I lie and tell him what he seems to want to hear—that we were close?
If I went with the first, this deflated face, waiting so earnestly for an answer, would be crushed. If I went with the second, when his memories came back, I might want to die.
Even as I stalled, he waited. He didn’t prod or rush me, but I still felt some pressure to answer quickly.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Screw it.
“It’s just… you’re so different from the Cha Gweonwoo I know.”
Answers blurted in a panic are usually the wrong ones.
“How different?”
His brows twitched, curious. With that immediate comeback, I thought—yep, I’m screwed.
But I’d already taken the first step; I crossed another river I couldn’t uncross. I didn’t know what lay beyond. I’d just have to go see.